Past exhibition / Chicano Dream

«‘I feel a bit Chicano, a bit Mexican-American, and I’m also an American artist. […] I feel richer for being all that at the same time. »

Eloy Torrez, 2000.

« In reaction to the dominant culture and the implied distinctions between “fine arts” and “popular art”, [Chicano] artists attempted to break down borders and mix genres. Real life is the main source of this new aesthetic.. »

Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, 1993

Cheech Marin, a generous passion

The Musée d’Aquitaine has chosen to exhibit the private collection of Richard Anthony “Cheech” Marin, the Los Angeles-based film director, actor and screenwriter. Over the last 30 years Cheech Marin has supported the greatest Mexican-American artists of Los Angeles.

Carlos Almaraz, Gronk, Harry Gamboa, Patssi Valdez, Frank Romero, John Valadez… All feature prominently in this collection, which has been on show in several international exhibitions: Chicano Visions, the travelling exhibition that debuted in 2001 at the San Antonio Museum of Art; and Chicanitas and Papel Chicano, which serve as a reminder that Chicano artists are also brilliant draughtsmen and pastel artists. Very recently the smaller exhibits in the Chicanitas exhibition were put on show in the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. And yet in France, Chicano artists are still relatively known. In 1989 the Centre de Recherche pour le Développement Culturel de Nantes (C.R.D.C.) and the Centre Arts Santa Monica in Barcelona co-produced a pioneering exhibition presenting sixteen Chicano painters, sculptors and poster artists. The Musée d’Aquitaine is now extending this presentation, the first of its kind in France. However, it is enlarging the range of artists and pictorial trends represented, and adding a significant introduction to the painful history of Mexican-Americans since the Second World War. Some 70 major works from the Cheech Marin collection have been selected to bear testimony to more than forty years of pictorial creation. Additionally, important loans from artists and private collectors have extended the exhibition to include contemporary screen prints, but also to represent the youngest form of Chicano creation.

The "Amis du musée d'Aquitaine" association invited John Valadez to create a mural on the frontage of the museum, as an introduction to the "Chicano Dream" exhibition. John Valadez is welcomed in artistic residence at the museum since may 2014 and has at his disposal a studio to make the 20 x 14.8 ft work of art. The mural is meant to be donated to the city of Bordeaux at the end, and displayed in public space.

Born in 1951 in Los Angeles, John Valadez first emerged on the Californian scene in the 1970s, in a collective of four artists calling themselves Los Four, in reference and in tribute to the Tres Grandes – Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco. At the time art was above

all a political weapon, and Chicano artists were collectively part of a huge equality and civil rights movement. In the 1980s John Valadez gradually moved way from collective projects and followed his own path: he carried out photo reportages and drew inspiration from the techniques of hyperrealism to produce a highly original body of work. Strongly marked by references to the octopus-like city of Los Angeles, Valadez’ paintings denounce the ultra-violence or urban life while mocking the steamroller that is the American way of life. An internationally acclaimed artist, Valadez is particularly well known for his extraordinary murals, vast frescoes for which he regularly is commissioned both in California and elsewhere in the USA.

The capital of the Gironde and the City of Angels are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of their twinning! On this occasion, both cities have organized a joint cultural season to introduce you to the wealth of their respective artistic scenes. Bordeaux invites you to an immersion in Los Angeles unlike you’ve ever seen it: modern, vibrant, dynamic, social, and alternative!

To open the cultural season, the Mayor of Bordeaux welcomes the City of Los Angeles, guest of honor for Bordeaux fête le Vin (Bordeaux wine festival), an event that attracts over 500,000 visitors every two years.

As from June 13th and over the course of 5 months, the cultural institutions and players in Bordeaux will raise the curtain on a crossdisciplinary program centered on Los Angeles.

Programmation at Bordeaux :

- At espace Saint-Rémi. FARAWAY SO CLOSE This is the third edition of the event, which is dedicated to urban contemporary art. After exhibiting at the Shepard Farey Gallery in LA last summer, FLASH Association welcomes its worthy successors, such as Mario Wagner, Zoltron, and Mike Stilkey, who will be featured alongside artists from Bordeaux.

- The CAPC - Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux. An ideal opportunity to discover monumental sculptures by Aaron Curry, an iconic artist of his generation, and by Carter Mull and Daniel Finsel, two young contemporary artists and ASCO exhibition.

- The musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux Find out more about West Coast photographers from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, with an exhibition of prints from the LACMA collection at the Fine Arts Museum of Bordeaux.

Partners / supporters of the project

Exhibition organized in partnership with Los Angeles town hall, in the context of the twinning of Bordeaux & Los Angeles' 50 anniversary, with the generous support of M. Cheech Marin.